


Red Hair, Dark Skin

by bamboo_astronaut (A_Lesbian_With_Pink_Hair)



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, mention of sexual assault
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-21
Updated: 2015-07-21
Packaged: 2018-04-10 07:07:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4382114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_Lesbian_With_Pink_Hair/pseuds/bamboo_astronaut
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You can pray for His forgiveness all you like. It doesn't matter. You seem to forget that I am a person... that all mages are people. The Maker ignores your perceived pain and He does not care about your paltry apologies. But I am a person and I am right here and the forgiveness you should pray for is mine."</p><p>-</p><p>A retelling of Cullen's character arc from Origins to beyond Inquisition. (Written before the release of Trespasser.)<br/>12/10/15: finally got around to editing this</p>
            </blockquote>





	Red Hair, Dark Skin

**Author's Note:**

> This fic uses my designs for the Warden, Hawke, and the Inquisitor. Or. Rather. Three of them. I have admittedly played all three games quite a few times. I just decided to use the ones that ended up looking similar.
> 
> Also there is reference to Cullen being bisexual, because he was originally supposed to be and fuck off if you think I'm gonna write 17k words about a straight dude.

She has red hair and dark skin and she’s a mage.

Her name is Devorah, and she’s an elven mage living in Kinloch Hold in the Ferelden Circle where he has been assigned. Cullen is barely 18, and he’s ready to prove himself.  


Cullen writes to his parents and his sisters and his brother, tells them of life in the Tower. It’s quiet, save for Harrowings and the occasional mage in need of discipline. And there’s _her._

Templars are, obviously, forbidden from fraternizing with mages, and he knows this. But she's so sweet. She smiles at him when she bumps into him in the halls and when he asks her questions she takes the time to answer him.

He fantasizes about her, and he shouldn’t. Templars should be above temptation, and so he is. She represents chaos, and he is order. But the bodice of her robes clings to her so delicately and she brushes red hair back behind her pointed ears and she moves so gracefully as only an elf can and he hungers for her. He thinks about her, ashamed, at night, biting his lip to stay silent in the barracks, jerking his hand fast under the covers. Her wide blue eyes, bright and innocent and pure, looking up at him trustingly. The curve of her smile. Innocent. Maybe untouched. Cullen could be the first to claim her; it wouldn’t be hard at all. How easy it would be to—  


Cullen grunts quietly as he finishes, breathing hard. He wipes his hands on the blanket and buries his face in the pillow. It’s wrong, it’s wrong, but he’s eighteen and he’s a Templar and she’s the sweetest little thing... and her Harrowing is quickly approaching. And he has to be there for it. He prays to the Maker that she passes so that he doesn’t have to do his duty and kill her.

Devorah does, of course, because she’s a talented girl, pass her Harrowing, and Cullen breathes a sigh of relief. He stutters out his congratulations and she smiles warmly as him as she makes her way past him to the main library.

He watches her go, oblivious to his impure thoughts, and he tries to stifle the urge for what he can’t have. The torment of her being so close but so far is sweet and intoxicating. Does she know what she does to him when she smiles like that?

A series of events involving phylacteries and blood magic transpire and ultimately Devorah is taken away by a man called Duncan to become a Grey Warden.

Privately, Cullen is devastated. He wanted her; he wanted her to be his, secretly in the dark. So many times he’d imagined sneaking into her bedchamber in the middle of the night and fumbling under the sheets. She would have let him, he was certain, pliable and sweet and virginal, would have been grateful for the attentions of a Templar.

But the Maker has shown His hand and sent her away before Cullen could sully himself with shame. Cullen is a Templar, with a sacred duty. Perhaps it is best that the mage girl is gone.

\--

Cullen wants to die. The demons have been torturing him with her image for hours upon end. Red hair, blue eyes, dark skin, the sweetest smile in Thedas. The demon takes her form, says things to him, whispers promises.

“ _Cullen please_ ,” the demon says with her mouth, her delicate voice, “ _I need you, please, I want you, I’ve always wanted you... You can touch me, I want you to, I need you..._ ” It strips her out of her Circle robes and once he would have drunk in the sight of it greedily, now he closes his eyes against it, against that _thing_ , against that source of temptation and evil. A mage. What a fool he’d been, to let himself be tempted by one of these _things_ that look human or elven, proclaim to be human or elven, but conjure such horrors. He’s wondered why they lock them up so tight, why they put the mages through such tests, but now Cullen understands.

Mages are not people. Not elves or humans. They’re _monsters_ that can only channel demons and bring death. That one, Uldred, has tortured and killed all his friends, all the other Templars who had dedicated themselves to protecting the world from evil magic, with blood magic, laughing as they screamed and begged for mercy. And whatever he’s done to them, it’s sounds like it’s better than what he’s doing to his fellow mages.

He feels the desire demon’s hands against his skin, sinfully soft as it laughs with Devorah’s voice. He shuts his eyes and shouts “ENOUGH!” and with delighted laughter and a promise to return, the visions leave for the time being.

Cullen is trapped in a barrier, kneeling, praying to the Maker for either death or freedom, whichever comes first.

She appears before him yet again, this time with three others behind her. It’s trying to make him think she’s real, she’s come to help. It had tried that hours ago. But this time she’s not in her soft Circle robes, but in light armor, and she’s covered in grime and blood. Her usually perfectly braided hair is messy and coming loose. She’s breathing heavy from racing up the stairs of the tower.

It’s a lie. Cullen knows it’s a lie, it has to be.

“This trick again?” he gasps, exhausted. “I know what you are. It won’t work... I will stay strong...”

She looks genuinely worried and she comes up to the barrier and does not cross it.

“Cullen, don’t you recognize me?” the vision of her asks in that sweet, clear voice.

He lets out a huff of almost-laughter. “Only too well... how far they must have delved into my thoughts.”

Another one behind her, in the form of another Circle mage, points out how tired he must be—and he is, sweet Maker, these demons won’t let him rest, hadn’t let the others _live_ , was torturing the surviving mages somewhere on the roof. A young woman, not a mage, offers him food, and he shouts them all away. Not real. They aren’t real.

“Rest easy,” the old woman says. “Help is here.”

He groans and does not open his eyes, hands clasped on one knee in prayer.

“Enough visions,” Cullen gasps. “If anything in you is human...” nothing is, the Abominations had been human once, might somehow hear him, he prays for a miracle. “Kill me now and stop this game.”

It’s been toying with him, torturing him, and like all the others surely it will kill him too. Furiously, Cullen grunts out, “You broke the others, but I will stay strong, for my sake... for theirs...” He swallows hard. “Sifting through my thoughts... tempting me with the one thing I always wanted but could never... _have_...” Cullen glares down at the floor, refuses to look at the vision of her any longer. “Using my shame against me... my ill-advised infatuation with _her_... a mage, of all things. I am so tired of these cruel jokes... these tricks... these...”

“Stop it.” Her voice is steel and ice, colder and harder than the delicate little bird of a thing he’d always sought after. He looks up at her almost in surprise. This vision is strange. She isn’t behaving like a temptress at all. Instead she looks unhappy. Her cheeks are flushed in shame, and the others behind her shuffle, uncomfortable. “You are _embarrassing_ me.”

And that was it, wasn’t it? She, like all the other mages, dares to want more out of life despite how dangerous she is. It isn’t enough he’s dedicated his life to protecting people like her, but now _she_ is ashamed of _him._

Cullen is _furious_. He jumps up. “Silence!” he snarls. “I’ll not listen to anything you say. Now... begone!”

But she doesn’t go. She stands there, naïve and lovely features clouded with anger and shame, the tips of her ears reddened with embarrassment. She dares a glance behind herself at the man in full armor and he lowers his gaze away from her.

“You’re still here,” Cullen says quietly. This is no vision. He had asked the Maker for a savior, and of course He’d sent _her_. “That’s... that’s always worked before... I close my eyes but... you are still here when I open them...”

She shakes her head and narrows those beautiful blue eyes. “Makes you wish you hadn’t said all those things, doesn’t it?” Her jaw clenches, nails biting into her palms as she restrains herself, restrains the horrific power she has at her command.

 _How **dare** she_. She was the one who smiled at him invitingly, she was the one who was born with monstrous power at her fingertips, it isn’t Cullen’s FAULT.

“I am beyond caring what you think!” he shouts. “The Maker knows my sin, and I pray that he will forgive me.”

Devorah is taken aback. “Why does it cause you so much pain?” she asks. Not gentle and sweet like his impression of her, but softer than before.

“It was the foolish fancy of a naïve boy,” he spits. “I know better now. Mages are not _people_ , and failing to resist temptation was my mistake.”

She glares at him hatefully and turns back to her companions, does not listen to him when he begs her to kill every mage on the roof, and no one listens to him when he makes the same demand again later. Before she leaves the Tower to move on, she comes over to where he sits leaning against the wall in the foyer.

“I am leaving,” she says. And he has been wrong about her entirely. Nothing about her now is soft or gentle or naïve. She is hard, she is clever, and she is powerful. This woman would not faint at the chance to bed a Templar. This woman is a Grey Warden, and a mage, and one day she will be their undoing, Cullen is sure.

“Good,” he answers bitterly. “Go.”

“There is something you should know,” Devorah tells him. “You said you pray the Maker forgives your sin of _lusting after me_ like a lecherous beast. As though I am some _thing_ you could not get, rather than a person who did not want you. That doesn’t seem to bother you today. But you should know this, Cullen Rutherford.”

He meets her eyes reluctantly, and hers are blazing with fire.

“You can pray for His forgiveness all you like. It doesn't matter. You seem to forget that I am a _person_... that all mages are people. The Maker ignores your perceived pain and He does not care about your paltry apologies. But I am a person and I am right here and the forgiveness you should pray for is _mine_.”

\--

He doesn’t see her again, but he is still in the tower rebuilding when they receive word that Devorah herself has slain the Archdemon and ended the Blight.

The mages are so pleased that it was one of their own that saved Ferelden and, indeed, Thedas in its entirety.

They also receive word that the Grey Warden Alistair, the bastard son of King Maric, has taken the throne, with Devorah as his wife and his consort, or whatever they were calling it. She will never be queen, as mages cannot hold titles, but she will always be by Alistair’s side and might even bear his children, future kings and queen of Ferelden.

Cullen thinks back on what she had said to him. He requests a transfer to the Free Marches, out of a kingdom where that mage girl has more power than him.

\--

She has red hair and dark skin and she’s a mage.

He doesn’t actually know that she’s a mage for most of the time he knows her, which is six years total. Her name is Emet Hawke, she’s a human who came from Ferelden during the Blight and became a noblewoman. She’s best known for running around Kirkwall like a wild animal, solving problems and creating a hundred new ones with her ragtag group of friends.

When he first sees her out on the coast he is startled by her features; her red hair is darker than Devorah's and cropped to her shoulders, and her eyes are a silvery grey rather than the bright blue of Devorah's, but he can't help but notice the similarities. Hawke helps him get to the bottom of the mystery of his missing recruits (kidnapped by rogue blood mages in an attempt to seed Templar ranks with demons, which Hawke ominously informs him has failed) and she also points out that Circles don’t _work._

Of course they do, Cullen thinks. What’s wrong with them? Sometimes he gets flashbacks to that night in Kinloch, to the shame on Devorah’s face, to the fear and terror the younger mages felt as they were tortured and killed by Uldred—

Meredith is like Cullen, he thinks. Meredith isn’t afraid, she just understands that mages need to be restricted by nature of what they are. Meredith is trustworthy and strong and an excellent leader, and Cullen respects her greatly.

That day by the Gallows, Hawke reacts visibly when he says “Mages aren’t people like you or me.”

He believes that. Cullen _knows_ that. Cullen knows Devorah in Ferelden is a trap just waiting to snare the entire country. Laying at night beside their king, until one night she can’t hold back the demons anymore and an Abomination takes the life of the King of Ferelden and plunges the country into chaos again. He thinks of her there, seductive and enchanting in the king's bed, blue eyes bright with candlelight and lyrium, red hair loose and tumbling over her smooth dark shoulders, dressed in royal finery or in nothing at all, unafraid of Templars, untouchable. Cullen remembers that Devorah had been afraid of him once. 

Hawke isn’t afraid of Cullen either. Actually, Cullen is fairly sure Hawke isn’t afraid of one damn thing in the entire world, honestly. She tells him right to his face that the Circles aren’t working. And, frankly, it terrifies him, but she might be right.

\--

He’s not sure when it was he started to doubt—probably as the rumors about Knight-Commander Meredith began to increase.

It has been three years since Hawke had uncovered the truth behind the missing recruits. It is the day the Arishok and Hawke duel for the life of a thief. Hawke has fought her way through the city to get to the Viscount Keep, protecting civilians and felling qunari in her wake along with Guard Captain Aveline, a dwarf with a crossbow, a blond apostate, and the angriest looking elf Cullen had ever seen.

Cullen does not see the entire duel itself but he and Meredith and Orsino and the other Templars come in just in time to see her expertly wielding a staff and, body glowing with effort, using lighting and ice and fire to send the Arishok to his grave.

She stands panting, looking around at the nobles who begin to cheer for her, one hand over the hole in her belly as the other hand drops her staff, which clatters to the floor. She's injured. Her apostate friend reaches her side first, blond hair stuck to his neck with sweat as he begins to attend to the place in her middle where the qunari’s sword had stabbed her clean through. Cullen sees her fall to her knees and her friend guides her down carefully, trying to stem the bleeding as he heals her insides. And there they are; two apostates in the middle of a crowd of cheering nobles. Meredith has no choice but to concede, to declare Emet Hawke the Champion of Kirkwall, and to allow her to live freely along with her apostate friends.

Hawke has done what no one else could; Hawke has sent the qunari away, has defended Kirkwall when no one else did. Cullen watches as a dark-haired pirate woman rips herself away from the crowd and over to where Hawke is keeled over and being tended to. The woman argues with the apostate for a moment and Cullen sees the way she strokes Hawke’s hair and holds her hand, sees a troubled expression slip to tenderness, sees Hawke smile through the pain as she reaches for the other woman weakly.

Cullen can tell that they’re in love, and that shocks him. Mages tended to be creatures of lust only, in his experience, but the look in Hawke’s eyes told another story. Perhaps it has been less an inability to love, but a fear of what the Templars would do upon discovery. He almost feels a pang of guilt, watching the two murmur to each other as the blond mage patches up her wounds.

That’s when he decides that he was wrong. Hawke is a mage, and she is a person. Mages are people. Mages love and fear just like he does.

Meredith watches the scene at his side.

“The moment her true nature overtakes her, she will be arrested,” she promises Cullen quietly.

Cullen is conflicted, and for three more years he battles his fear of mages and his respect for Kirkwall’s Champion while Hawke takes her role to heart. She even slays a mighty dragon to protect the city from its inevitable destruction. And also she develops a penchant for startling nobles when she does on rare occasion accept party invitations by always bringing one of her odd friends as a guest and usually leaving early to fight slavers by the docks.

In the absence of the Viscount, on the other hand, Meredith’s downward spiral begins. She takes over all of the Viscount’s duties, clamping down harder than ever on the mages, and it’s no wonder that things escalate like they do.

Ultimately, an apostate blows up the Chantry and murders the Grand Cleric. He is the blond healer from three years earlier, and he is wrong to do it; even Hawke is enraged by what he’s done. But he gets what he wants; the issue must be dealt with at last, not pushed aside and stifled any longer. Hawke is forced to make a choice, and so is Cullen. Hawke chooses the mages. To Cullen, this is no surprise.

What is a surprise to Cullen is that Meredith knows that arresting Hawke is the right thing to do, and yet she announces that the Templars are to kill the Champion of Kirkwall and all of her companions instead, an order that is outside of her authority and in defiance of her duty. And in this moment, Cullen looks at Templar Knight-Commander Meredith and sees her for what she truly is:

She is all the things he is going to be if he does not find it within himself to be better. Meredith’s fear of mages and magic has turned them in her mind to an insurmountable enemy that she must destroy at any cost. She does not see the young children taken from their families too young and against their will, she does not see parents and spouses and partners desperate to see their loved ones again, she does not see mages cowering in fear from Templars who ought to be their protectors, she does not see Hawke nearly dying to defend one single woman from qunari torture, does not see the look in Hawke’s eyes when she sees her white-haired paramour. Meredith does not _see_ , she only reacts to what is not even there.

She is monstrous in her fear, and it is devouring her. Expedited by the strange red sword that Hawke and that dwarf Varric seem to recognize, she orders the Templars to kill the Champion, but now Cullen sees in her all the things Devorah saw in him. The Hero of Ferelden’s angry face flashes in Cullen’s mind, details vague with age but still as furious and wounded as the day she found him in the tower.

Cullen stands against Meredith. It is his only choice, because in his mind he is standing against himself, fighting the internal battle that has raged within for seven years. If Meredith is everything in him that is angry and afraid and lashes out blindly in madness, then Hawke is everything in him with courage and integrity and kindness. Cullen knows now that there is more inside of him than hate, there is room for growth, and perhaps there is room for forgiveness as well. Cullen _wants_ to change. Cullen wants desperately not to end up like Meredith. He hasn't known it until now. But he watches her rant and rave and kill unflinchingly and he thinks, no, that is not all that I am./p >

Hawke and her friends and Cullen fight Meredith, but they do not defeat her. Ultimately, Knight-Commander Meredith’s death is her own doing. She draws great and horrific power from the red lyrium sword, until the sword decides it has given her enough and it takes everything back, burning away her flesh and tissue until all that is left is a grotesque red lyrium form, head turned forever to the sky to wonder for all eternity why Andraste did not help her crush so many innocents in the name of justice.

It rains. Cullen feels it, and he hears it, and yet somehow he cannot feel anything. He’s numb, staring at what’s left of Meredith, at what feels like what’s left of him. The anger and the hatred in him have softened, washing away with the rain as easily as the fresh blood on the cobblestones. It’s cold, and he thinks back to the day he became a fully-fledged Templar Knight. He did it to protect people. He did it to preserve all the good things of magic and to defend against the bad. He became a Templar to do what was right.

And in the process he’s become cruel and bitter and afraid, even though he’d taken a vow to be better than that. He has given everything to the Templars, he thinks, and like Meredith’s sword, it’s been slowly sucking him dry.

The Templars move as a group to allow Hawke and her friends to leave. There has been enough fighting, enough death, for one day. The fires are being put out by the rain. The guards have been doing their job, protecting citizens. Kirkwall is still standing, and for one day, this has to be enough.

Hawke meets Cullen’s eyes and he nods at her, knowing he made the right choice. Mages are not monsters. They know fear and courage, they know laughter and sorry, they know indifference and love. Hawke loved her mother and her sister and her father, she loves her brother, she loves that beautiful pirate by her side, she loves all of her strange assortment of friends, and she has loved Kirkwall enough to stand up for it when no one else did. Hawke stood up against rampaging qunari and blood mages and a twisted Chantry mother and more, and now she has to leave.

Cullen watches her go, oddly comforted by the idea that as long as she lives, there is hope for him to be better. That as long as Hawke survives and Meredith dies, Cullen's strength of character will not fail.

The Champion of Kirkwall goes from the city and off into a world that will never be the same.

\--

She has red hair and dark skin and she’s a mage.

It has been ten years since the Blight ended. Cullen has joined the Inquisition and become the Commander of its troops, and just in time, because not long after, the Divine is murdered at the Conclave and a great rift called the Breach is torn open in the sky.

Their only hope is the lone survivor of the Conclave. She’s named Neela and she’s a former Circle mage and when she looks at him for the first time his blood runs cold.

She’s not an elf but she looks just like Devorah, and very similar to Hawke. He doesn’t even see her until after she proves she can possibly close the Breach and that she is not the one who killed Divine Justinia. The people start to call her the Herald of Andraste.

When they first meet, she is guarded, terse, only speaks with him for as long as she has to, brushes her hair (short, not much longer than Cassandra's) behind her ears nervously again and again. For a few days he's miffed until Leliana tells him that Neela is wary of him because of his ex-Templar status. She does, eventually, warm up to him a little, and he feels a flutter of something when she does, feels like he's earned something precious.

She speaks with him outside the Chantry in Haven and she’s got that red hair and that dark skin and she’s a mage and he accidentally starts his diatribe about how important the Inquisition is before he stops himself and she laughs and tells him she’d “love to hear it” if he’s prepared a speech.

She smiles and he stutters because _Maker, she’s beautiful_ and even as she leaves he feels a stir in his chest that he never expected to feel. 

\--

Neela is sweet even though she's nervous. She hesitantly asks him about his years as a Templar and looks up at him from under pretty lashes with those blue eyes and he feels something unknown clutching at his chest, a shadow of something he’d felt eleven years earlier.

_Desire._

But it isn’t the same. She’s not some imagined dainty innocent just waiting for someone to take her. He does not make up objectifying and insulting fantasies about her. Neela’s intelligent, she’s brave, she’s decisive, she’s bold, she’s funny.

Neela is a person. She’s a human being just like Cullen is.

He doesn’t trust himself properly around her when she teases him, asking about Templars and their vows, but Maker take him she knows exactly what she’s doing to him.  


Cullen realizes there’s a decent chance that she could be interested in him, and he’s terrified of it. The more he learns about Neela, the more he likes her as an individual. And the more he likes her, the guiltier he feels about what he’d done all those years ago in Kinloch Hold.

She does what no one else can. She gets the rebel mages to join the Inquisition, effectively ending the Mage-Templar war. Neela closes the Breach. And then Corypheus comes to destroy Haven, and Neela volunteers herself as bait so the refugees and the rest of the Inquisition.  


He almost tells her no, almost tells her to go with the refugees, let someone else die for the Inquisition, but the determination in Neela’s eyes silences him. Her eyes reflect Devorah’s the day she was determined to save the Circle and his own ungrateful self.

“Get them out of here, Commander,” she orders. “Send a flare up when you’re clear of the mountain.”

She squares her jaw and looks him in the eye and he nods, and then Neela turns and runs out the door.

\--

Neela gives her life for them. He sits quietly in the melancholy makeshift camp as Leliana and Josephine bicker and Cassandra occasionally jumps in with an angry comment or two. Finally he gets angry enough to join in, at which point Leliana gets defensive on Josephine's behalf and Cassandra ducks out entirely. They're arguing like this because they're scared, and they're tired, and they don't know what to do. Fortunately, the Maker decides for them.

A scout races over to them, gasping for breath from the run.

“Someone... one figure... coming from the south...” the scout gasps, and Cullen and the rest run forward towards the barren snowy field just in time to see Neela collapse.

Cullen reaches her first, practically yanks his fur-lined mantle off and wraps her in is, scoops her up in his arms and trods through the snow back to the tents as the refugees whisper amongst themselves.

The healers and a few of the mages strip her out of her soaked leather armor, pull off her boots and wet socks, undress her down to her smallclothes; Cullen looks away, bashful, unwilling to leer at her when the healers are trying to keep the frostbite from claiming Neela's extremities. When the mages have warmed her outsides enough and the healers have made potions to take care of her insides, they dress her in pajamas and wool socks and cover her with every blanket in the camp not being used. He turns back around, looks at her sleeping face looking toasty underneath quilt mountain. 

_She’s alive. She faced death and walked out alive. She truly is the Herald of Andraste._

Mother Giselle tends to Neela as Cullen goes back to the other leaders. Things are still grim, but they are definitely getting brighter.

\--  


_“There is something you should know,” Devorah tells him. “You said you pray the Maker forgives your sin of lusting after me like a lecherous beast. As though I am some **thing** you could not get, rather than a person who did not want you. That doesn’t seem to bother you today. But you should know this, Cullen Rutherford.”_

_He meets her eyes, and hers are blazing with fire._

_“You can pray for His forgiveness all you like. It doesn't matter. You seem to forget that I am a _person_... that all mages are people. The Maker ignores your perceived pain and He does not care about your paltry apologies. But I am a person and I am right here and the forgiveness you should pray for is _mine_.”_

_Neela stands behind Devorah, watching him disapprovingly. Devorah turns and walks away, and after a moment, Neela does the same._

He wakes up gasping for air. This dream is not the one he usually has when he dreams of Kinloch, but this one scares him nearly as much. It has been difficult without lyrium, and he imagines it will only get harder still.

\--  


They name Neela Inquisitor and quickly get to work fixing up Skyhold and bolstering the troops and caring for the wounded.

She comes around to speak with him when she’s not somewhere in Thedas recruiting and helping and exploring. Neela has assembled her Inner Circle team to go with her in varying combinations around Ferelden and Orlais, and Cullen has his hands full with the Inquisition’s forces.

“My lady Inquisitor,” he greets her one afternoon after her return from closing rifts in the Hinterlands.

She smiles, gracious as always, and tells him, “Cullen, you don’t always have to greet me by my title.”

“Lady Trevelyan, then,” Cullen corrects himself hesitantly. She grew up in the Circle but she'd been a noble before, perhaps she preferred a more formal attitude.

Neela laughs and shakes her head. “Warmer...”

“...Neela?”

She smiles at him and it’s like the sun has risen a second time over the mountain.

“That’s it,” Neela says as she turns away. “I’ve got to go check in with Cassandra, but I'll check in with you later when we've settled in.”

\--

He is thinking about the dream he’d had, and his body quakes with the pain of quitting lyrium and he has to turn to the window to lean against it when he hears her come in.  


Cullen puts his hands on the desk, bracing himself. He has to tell her about the lyrium. She has to know he’s not a Templar anymore, he’s not that terrified boy who treated a woman like a _thing_ , who didn’t see mages as people. And he does not take their lyrium anymore.

He tells her as such.

“Cullen, if this could kill you...” she trails off, upset.

He doesn’t look up from the desk. “It hasn’t yet,” he answers.

Cullen goes on to tell her about the contingency plan he’s set with Cassandra, and she gives him her approval and leaves.

He slumps over in his chair when she’s gone, buries his face in his hands.

“I respect what you’re doing,” Neela had said. But does she _understand_? 

She can’t, not really. She’s lived her life in the Circle in Ostwick, terrified of Templars. She understands that they take lyrium and that it’s dangerous to quit, but does she understand the significance of it? Does she understand that Cullen is leaving his Templar self behind?

More than ten years he’d spent with the Templars, learning to fear and hate and dehumanize mages, but he can’t be that man anymore. He can’t take the lyrium that bound him to that code. Cullen doesn’t think ill of most remaining Templars. But they have not seen the things he has seen. The mages he's killed, the children whose Tranquility he sanctioned. The abominations and the demons in Kinloch. The Knight-Commander turning to solid lyrium in Kirkwall.

He cannot spend another day consuming something that was binding him to all the things he does not want to be ever again.

The Commander thinks of the Hero of Ferelden, ten years gone from him but her face burned into his mind. His fantasy version of her buried. He woke up that morning feeling shame, shame he should have felt ten years earlier when she rescued him. He has been so wrong.

_“You can pray for His forgiveness all you like. It doesn't matter. You seem to forget that I am a _person_... that all mages are people. The Maker ignores your perceived pain and He does not care about your paltry apologies. But I am a person and I am right here and the forgiveness you should pray for is _mine_.”_

For ten years her words had meant little, but now he looks at Neela and he _sees her_. She is wicked clever, and she’s kind beyond measure, and selfless, and she’s _good._

Cullen thought he was good, once. He'd been cruel and callous, but he'd thought himself to be good. But Neela... He sees the genuine goodness in her, and her outward beauty too, and he only wishes he could go back ten years to tell himself not to treat Devorah like an object his greedy hands could not touch. She had never been to blame for his poorly-managed lust, the fault had been his. And ten years later, he finally understands.

\--

Cullen starts playing chess with Dorian once a week in the garden, and one day Neela finds them just in time for Cullen to finally defeat the Tevinter mage in chess.

Dorian smiles not unkindly and goes off to snark somewhere else, and Neela sits down to play a game.

And it’s _really nice_. Spending time with Neela and not talking about the Inquisition only confirms that the two of them are quite compatible outside of Inquisition matters, and Cullen feels his heart pounding hard in his chest.

He tells her about his brother and his sisters. When she asks him where they are, he realizes that he has not written to any of them for a very long time, and he feels a pang of remorse for that. He used to write every week to them.

“We should spend more time together,” she says sweetly.

His face flushes. “I would like that.”

Neela beats him at chess, and he does not mind it one bit.  


\--

That night he lays in bed and stares up at the ceiling, afraid of both the nightmares waiting for him and the uncertainty swirling in his stomach.

_“We should spend more time together.”_

He can almost see Devorah’s face, clouded with the ten years since he’d seen her. She’d married King Alistair, and they’d had son, and more recently she disappeared.

Cullen, as a Templar, has never really considered himself the marrying type. Or the type to become involved at all. He’s kept those feelings bottled up tightly for ten years but he feels those wisps of want within himself now, mixed up with the pain of not taking lyrium and the stress of commanding the army of the Inquisition.

He presses his hands over his eyes. It is late. No one is up save for the night watch and a few late-night drinkers at the tavern. Sleep tugs at the corners of his mind but he can only think of Neela, incredibly smart and sweet and generous. Neela, who would have given her life for the Inquisition a hundred times over by now. Neela, the powerful mage who uses her magic to defend the innocent and defeat demons and wrongdoers.

Neela, who is beautiful, with soft red hair and smooth dark skin and eyes bluer than the Waking Sea, hands soft when they brushed his over the chess board and she smiled shyly before pulling away, smaller than him, it would be so easy to wrap her up in his arms, to curl himself around her and never let her go, and it’s so unlike what he had felt ten years earlier. That paled harshly in comparison to what he feels now.

He wants Neela, but in ways he’d never wanted before. He wants her first lazy smile in the morning when she wakes up beside him, he wants her hands on his shoulders when the pain is too much for him to bear alone, he wants to support her when she struggles with the weight of responsibility, he wants to give her gifts just so she’ll smile at him, wants to give her everything she desires. He wants to whisper sweet words into her ears as he holds her in his arms, he wants to pleasure her in every way he knows how and then to learn new ways to make her body sing for him. He wants to hold her hand and walk along the battlements, to cover her mouth with his own and run his fingers through her hair. He wants to make her laugh. He wants to make her happy.

He wants to love her.

And that’s _fucking terrifying._

Cullen rolls over in bed and pulls his blankets up to his neck, for once preferring the nightmares to his own waking thoughts.

\--

She leaves early the next morning for the Emerald Graves and he doesn’t see her for almost a month. In a way, it’s a relief for Cullen. He’s been struggling with the nightmares and the withdrawal, and he thinks all his hopes and his fears about Neela would be too much on top of it.

Cullen reads her letters earnestly, her reports about the area and a few anecdotes about her companions and their travels. She says nothing specifically for Cullen, which is a bit of a disappointment, but perhaps she needs some space as well. Unfortunately she’s brought Dorian with her this time, depriving Cullen of his chess partner as well.

Her return is another kind of relief; a potential end to the apprehension and the waiting. Cullen knows Neela is nervous about something, he could tell she had been before, but he’s happy to see her when she comes to his office in clean clothes, red hair still slightly damp from her bath.

“I thought we could talk,” she says, anxious. “Alone.”

“Alone?” Cullen swallows hard. This is it, he thinks. Something is about to happen, but he can’t say what. “I mean. Of course.”

He follows her out on the battlements, away from possible ears listening in and into the warm sunlight. She doesn’t say anything for a little while.

“It’s a, ah, nice day,” he says awkwardly, rubbing the back of his head with a shaky hand. She seems to startle out of her thoughts.

“What?” Neela says, surprised. 

He stops and turns to her, looks at her face. Even nervous, Maker is she beautiful.

“There was something you wanted to discuss?” Cullen keeps his voice gentle, but he’s having trouble controlling his emotions. He wants her so badly in a thousand different ways but. She is a mage. And he was once a Templar. He no longer takes lyrium but will that be enough to make her feel safe with him? He prays to Andraste that it does. It’s all he wants.

“Cullen, I care for you, and...” she trails off with a sigh, cheeks flushed darker as she fidgets. His heart leaps into his throat.

“What’s wrong?” Cullen asks quietly. The rejection is coming. All the reasons they shouldn’t be together, all the reason she would never want him.

_“You can pray for His forgiveness all you like. It doesn't matter. You seem to forget that I am a _person_... that all mages are people. The Maker ignores your perceived pain and He does not care about your paltry apologies. But I am a person and I am right here and the forgiveness you should pray for is **mine**.”_

“You left the Templars,” Neela says gently. “You don’t... you’re not a Templar now. You do not hunt people like me. But do you trust mages? Do you... do you trust me?”

He feels his face heating up. She is not asking for his love or affections, for gifts or grand gestures. He would happily give her any of those things, no matter the price. But she doesn’t want that. She merely asks for his trust.

He has to take a deep breath. Magic exists to serve man and never to rule over him. He knows this. But Neela, sweet Neela, has never asked to rule over anyone. She uses her magic only ever to help others, and that is why she became Inquisitor.

“I do trust you,” he murmurs. “I have great faith in you, Herald. And you have not only my trust, but also my respect.”

“Then...” she swallows hard, like she’s getting up the courage, ignorant to how he hangs on her every word, almost desperate for her to want him. “Could you... ever think of me as anything more?”

“I could,” he forces out. “I mean, I do. Think of you. To be frank, I think of you quite a lot. And I... I find myself wanting to reach out to you. Not—not to presume anything, just. To tell you. That I do think of you as more.”

He has envisioned some form of this moment more times than he could count, and yet somehow in the middle of it, all of his carefully practiced pretty words left his head.

Cullen wipes at his face with his hand and turns away, but Neela moves around to his front, not letting him escape.

“What’s stopping you?” she asks like she’s waiting for his rejection. It’s preposterous, the idea that he would ever reject _her_.

“You’re... the Inquisitor. And I lead your army. And people are out there _dying_ , I feel selfish wanting as much of your attention as I can get. There are people who need you far more than an ex-Templar who once would have treated you abhorrently. I have done terrible things to people just like you, and I thought it was _right_. It wasn't, but I.... I was a Templar, and you are a mage, and yet I...”

He’s terrified to face the part of himself that fears and abhors magic. He caught an inkling of that person in Meredith. And he knows that, with Neela, he will have no choice but to see himself for what he is and what he has been before.

“...It just seems impossible.”

The corners of her pretty mouth turn up. “Nothing is impossible. I don’t think so, anyway.”

“It seems too much to ask... But I _want_ to...”

She lifts a hand as if to touch him but then drops it back at her side. “You can always ask, Cullen.”

He moves in slowly, giving her plenty of room to pull away or change her mind but she stays, lets him crowd her in against the stone wall. He rests his forehead against hers and meets her bright blue eyes with his deep gold ones, and her pretty eyes flutter shut and _she wants him, Maker’s breath_ , he leans in and it’s _perfect_ and—

“Commander!”

A scout intrudes on his perfect moment. And part of him knows that it isn’t the man’s fault, but Cullen is still furious. He scares the scout away (at least the man isn’t a complete idiot) and turns back to a very embarrassed Neela, who tries to wave off their entire conversation in humiliation.

“Neela, I...”

“It’s fine. if you need to—“

He cuts her off with a kiss because it’s all he can do. Cullen refuses to lose this moment, this exchange of words and feelings, to work, to one scout’s delivery, to the Inquisition. This moment belongs to him and to Neela and no one else.

Gently he cups her jaw with his right hand and presses his lips softly against hers. She makes a surprised noise, but far from rejecting him, she slides her tongue cleverly along the seam of his mouth, inviting Cullen to kiss deeper. He feels her hands on his back, holding onto him, and he doesn’t pull back until both of them are breathless.

The first thought that comes into his head is _I’m sorry._ He had not asked her for the kiss, he had taken it, and it was not his to take. A lesson he had learned the hard way ten years earlier. No person, mage or otherwise, is his to take.

“I’m sorry!” he gasps out, but the look on her face is far from upset. “that was... um... really nice.” His voice fades to a whisper.

“Sorry—then... You don’t... you don’t regret it, do you? Because I—I’ve wanted, more than _anything_ —“

“ _No_!” he says forcefully, then softer, “No, not at all. I could make a thousand mistakes after today and my only regret would have been not kissing you.” He cannot say with words how much he did not regret it, but with actions he hopes he can. Cullen pulls Neela closer and leans in again and she responds eagerly, resting one hand on the back of his head so he won’t pull away. As if pulling away is something Cullen wants to do. If breathing wasn’t necessary, Cullen would happily stay like this forever.

He lets her lead the kiss, because she’s clearly kissed more mouths than he has (Four total, a girl from the neighboring farm when he was a boy, another lady when he was an older teenager, a young man in Denerim before his Templar training began, and now Neela.)

Cullen is half convinced it’s a dream, that a woman he is so genuinely infatuated with fancies him back. She’s smart and she’s strong and she’s beautiful and she’s going to save the world, and now she holds Cullen’s heart.

\--  


It’s two weeks before she has to leave Skyhold again, and they are two of the happiest weeks of Cullen’s life. Whenever she can, she comes to see him, to kiss him and talk to him and tell him stories and listen to his. He holds her hand when they walk the battlements and it’s a dizzy kind of joy.

The nightmares do not improve, however, and the pain gets worse. Neela worries about him, but he eases her worries as best he can. She sits with him in his office, his armor removed and replaced by a soft red tunic.

“I will be just fine,” Cullen assures her. “I swear to you.”

And he is, until the day she and the Iron Bull and Vivienne and Sera head off to the Exalted Plains.

The fifteen days until her return are torture, and they involve horrendous nightmares and a lot of screaming. Cullen loses track of the days, all he can think about is the hunger for lyrium. Things are so much easier when he takes it, the nightmares hurt him less.

But he won’t do it. He suffers every night from the nightmares of Kinloch Hold, the abominations holding down the other Templars, Cullen’s _friends_ , and sucking the life from them, he remembers the pain and the torture the demons inflicted, the walls painted with gore and viscera and the _smell_ —

He remembers the begging and the screaming of children made Tranquil, of mages killed for minor infractions, sobbing beneath his merciless blade--

He remembers Meredith. He remembers the shrill rage, the red lyrium sword, the statues coming to life, he remembers Hawke’s magic flying about, and most of all he remembers the Knight-Commander’s shrieks as the sword took its payment for the power it had given her and burned her down to her bones, turned what was left of her to red lyrium, and her eyes—

Cullen cries out and sits up in bed, sweating, sheets sticking to his bare back. He throws on his clothing, his armor, and makes his way to the blacksmith where Cassandra is overseeing production.

He demands that she fulfill her promise and replace him, and she argues that it isn’t necessary. Cullen yells at her, furious, but then his tirade is paused by the door opening behind him. He doesn’t turn around but he immediately knows it’s Neela and quiets.

She meets his eyes, questioning, worried, and all he can say is what he should have said to another mage very much like her ten years earlier.

“Forgive me.”

\--

He glares down at that little wooden box full of nefarious little instruments. They aren’t alive. They’re just _objects_. And yet they control him so easily. Snarling, he picks it up and hurls it at the wall just to hear the satisfying sound of glass shattering.

And Neela makes another ill-timed entrance, just inches away from being hit by flying glass.

“Maker’s breath,” Cullen gasps, leaning heavily on his desk. “I didn’t hear you enter. I...”

He trails off, looks at the mess on the floor by her feet, and at her concerned stare. She cares for him and he doesn’t deserve it. 

“Forgive me,” he says again.

His shoulders slouch and he feels defeated. Cullen wants to tell her. He wants to tell her why he’s chosen such a difficult path for himself. Neela is worried, because she’s good-hearted like that, and he stumbles to the window.

He tells her about what happened in Ferelden’s Circle during the Blight. He tells her about Uldred, and the abominations, and the demons, and the blood magic, and the torture. She listens quietly.

“How can you be the same person after that?” he demands. “Still. I wanted to serve. They sent me to Kirkwall. I trusted the Knight-Commander, and for what? Her fear of mages ended in madness. Kirkwall’s Circle fell. Innocent people died in the streets. Can’t you see why I wanted nothing to do with that life?”

She moves towards him, puts a gentle hand on his arm.

“Of course I can,” she says softly. “I—“

“Don’t!” Cullen cuts her off, turning away, jerking his arm out of her reach. “You should be questioning what I’ve done!”

“And just what is it that you think you’ve done?” she asks. This throws him for a loop.

“What I’ve... I’ve killed--I've killed you a dozen times over. I have hurt mages that did nothing wrong, I have allowed mage children to be made Tranquil, I have been... my own fear of magic had made me a cruel man for a long time. It was wrong of me. I wanted to leave it all behind, stop taking lyrium... I thought this would be better—that I would regain some control over my life. But these thoughts won’t _leave me_!”

Tears well in Cullen’s eyes and he can’t hold them back. He has not cried in many years but now he cannot stop. “How many lives depend on our success!? I swore myself to this cause... I will not give less to the Inquisition than I did the Chantry. I should be _taking it_!” He slams his fist into the bookshelf, and softly repeats, “I should be taking it.”

Neela moves towards him again, but does not touch him. She asks, “Is that what you want?”

It has been a very, very long time since anyone has asked Cullen what he wants.

“No,” he says. He lets her into his personal space, leans into the cool touch of her hand against his cheek and his eyes flutter closed. Neela is safe, _Neela_ is what he wants, to hell with the rest. He feels her gentle fingers wipe the tears from his cheeks and hold him there, grounding him.

She assures him that he has it within himself to endure the withdrawal, and when she says it, he believes her.

\--

A few days later, she catches up with him on the battlements as he watches the sunrise. In his stumbling way, Cullen tries to thank her, and Neela leans into him at his side.

“I trust you’re feeling better?” she asks gently. Hers is the sweetest face Cullen has ever seen.

“I... yes.”

“Is it always that bad?”

“The pain comes and goes. Sometimes I feel as if I’m back there... I should not have pushed myself so far that day.”

She rests her head against his arm. “I’m glad you’re all right.”

Cullen replies simply, “I am.” He turns to look at her. “I’ve never told anyone what truly happened to me at Ferelden’s Circle. I was... not myself, after that. I was angry. For years, that anger blinded me. I’m not proud of the man it made me. The things I did, the way I saw mages...” he takes a deep breath. He had told her everything else, but this. Cullen wants Neela to know everything. Cullen wants her to see him and know him. He has to tell her.

“There was a mage in Ferelden’s Circle. Before the Blight began. She looked... well that doesn’t matter. She was pretty. And I was young, and afraid, and I had been taught by the Chantry to hate and fear, that mages were not people.”

Neela bites her lip and says nothing, but she looks hurt.

“I was wrong, Neela. What I did was wrong. In my head, I... created inappropriate fantasies about her that had nothing to do with _her_. It was me. I blamed her for smiling at me, for being pretty, but she wasn’t... I did not care about her. Like I care for you. She was a _thing_ to me. And I wasn’t ashamed of how I thought of her like I should have been, but I was ashamed of my... boyish lust, and I prayed for the Maker to forgive me.”

“And then?”

“She left the tower for a while, and then Uldred... That woman is the one who saved me when the blood mages and their abominations killed the others. And when she saved me, I was not thankful. I should have been. She rescued me and killed the demons. But I... I wasn’t. The demons had tormented me by using her appearance, and when she finally showed up to help us, I yelled at her. I called her a _thing_ , and I called her my _secret shame_. And she was hurt. She’d never been anything but kind to me, and it wasn’t her fault but I... I blamed her. It was easier than accepting the blame myself. I told her I’d asked the Maker for forgiveness, and did not give a shit for her opinion.”

Neela’s face is unreadable, and Cullen is afraid of what she’ll think of him now. She asks, “What happened to her?”

Cullen smiles ruefully and laughs once. “She saved the Circle. And before she left, she told me that for seeing mages as I did and treating her like an object instead of a person, I could beg the Maker for forgiveness all I liked, and never know that the forgiveness I should have searched for was hers. Then she left, slew the Archdemon, and married King Alistair.”

Neela gasps. “You—the _Hero of Ferelden_ —“

“I know,” he says. “I know. It was ten years ago, and it was wrong. I was wrong. I was all wrong, back then.” Cullen frowns. “The way I saw mages... I’m not sure I would have cared about you. I couldn’t have. And the thought of that sickens me. I’m... I am sorry, for what I did to her. What I said. How I acted.”

He takes her hands in his and she smiles softly, kind and gentle-hearted like she always is. He brings her hands up so he can kiss every knuckle. 

Neela tells him, “The Hero of Ferelden isn’t around right now. But you should know that, what what it’s worth, _I_ am going to forgive you someday. For all of it. I’m just one former Circle mage, and I was never in your Circles, but I... I will forgive you for what you’ve done. Because you’re trying to become someone better. And when you have given everything to this cause that you did to the Chantry... then that will be enough for me. You're trying, and I like that. I like who you are right now. And I think, more importantly, you will like what you become.”

Cullen squeezes her hands gently. He had expected her to be disgusted with him. To push him away. To ask _how could you do that to another mage just like me? It could have been me. If you were in Ostwick instead of Ferelden it could have been me. It would have been._

“You... you still... even after...”

Neela smiles up at him, gentle. “Cullen. I... I _care_ about you. You’ve done nothing to change that. If anything, you’ve proven your integrity. A lesser man would not have come clean with his unsavory past. But you’re not less. You wanted to tell me. You haven’t forced me into anything or imposed yourself in any way. You’ve been a gentleman.” She sighs. “You are becoming a good man, Cullen Rutherford. And now I know that you learned a hard lesson to be this way. So thank you. For trusting me with the truth."

“Neela, you... did a Templar ever force you to...?”

The smile falls from her face and she looks away.

“The things I suffered at the hands of Templars are all best left in the past,” she says ominously. Someday, maybe he will ask her again. For now, he’d rather she be comfortable with their conversation.

A thought crosses his mind. “Neela,” Cullen says, voice low. “When we met. Were you afraid of me?”

She looks back up at him, expression distant. “Yes. I was so, so scared of you. Terrified. You were a Templar. Not truly, not anymore, but the Templar abilities, surely you’d kept those. The cruelty and the hate, surely you'd kept them too. In the Circle you learn early to be afraid of Templars. They can hurt you more than anyone else can and then turn around to be praised for it. They can... coerce you into bed, if they want. Templars have every power over you and you’re... helpless. They can cancel out your only means of defense. And they watch you, who you’re talking to. If you get too close with another mage... emotionally, I mean... That’s the best way to destroy you. When a Templar catches you falling in love, that’s when you know they’re going to hurt you. And I was afraid of you. Because I know the rebellions resulted in this chaos but at least I thought the Templars couldn’t hurt me anymore. And then you were there, and you were so nice but I couldn’t tell if I could actually trust you, if you would throw me back into prison or worse...”

Cullen feels hollow. Hearing her lay out all of her fears like that. The Templars had hurt her in many ways. It sounds like she’s talking about monsters. But she’s talking about him. He’s been the Templar that caught two mages becoming too close and sent one to another Circle or the dungeon. He’s been the Templar watching the mages closely, making them nervous and uncomfortable. And, given enough time and enough stupidity, he would even have been the Templar abusing his power to force a mage into bed.  


“But you changed my mind,” Neela continues softly. “You showed me that the hatred of the Templars touched you, but did not become all you are. You showed me that you care about the Inquisition, about the world, that you believe in me as a leader. You proved yourself a decentman. A man who wants to change and be better than he was. That’s why I care for you so very much. Because you try hard, every day, to be better. Maybe you weren't before. I'm sure there are those who would say otherwise, and you will have to answer to those people. But I know when the time comes, you will face them with honesty and humility. Because that's who you are. And that's why I'm still here with you.

She says it so gently he almost misses it, but his heart is pounding so hard in his chest and he puts a hand against her cheek, fingers tracing the line of her jaw. She leans into his hand.

“Neela,” he whispers. “You’re so...”

“What?”

There isn’t a word for what she is. Neela is _everything_. 

“You’re...” he thinks about it a moment. “You are the best humanity has to show for itself. Mage or otherwise. It will always be my privilege to be close to you. You are... the best person I have ever known and ever will. And I... I rather adore you.”

She grins and he leans in close and lets her close the kiss, which she does eagerly, and he feels renewed, feels clean in a way he hasn’t before. This woman knows his entire truth and, despite being hurt by men just like him, despite knowing the things he has done, chooses to be with him.

Neela is brave and kind and strong and brilliant and Cullen is so, so in love with her.

\--

Over the next few months, Cullen feels the pain of withdrawal less and less, although his nightmares remain. His relationship with Neela is going well. He thinks. Cullen hopes so. He feels happier than he ever has, despite the state of the world.

They have not slept together, and while Cullen desires her, wants to make love to her, he’s determined to let Neela set the pace of their relationship. And if she’s content with kisses and holding hands forever, then he is too.

He looks at her like she’s hung every star in the sky, and other members of the inner circle are noticing. Dorian particularly likes to poke fun at Cullen over their regular chess matches.

But they’re getting closer to tracking down Samson, to tracking down Corypheus, and his own work is getting harder.

She sneaks in at the end of his distributing orders and he ushers his men out quickly and locks the door behind them.

“Long day?” she asks gently. He’s always awed by Neela’s gentle heart despite the power and force she wields. Cullen finds it comforting that she has such softness in her after so much violence. Parts of Neela have changed, become stronger, more determined, but the heart of her, the sweetness, always remains. It is humbling. That gentleness would have been crushed out of anyone else in Neela’s position, Cullen thinks.

And he _loves_ her for it.

Cullen has been thinking that for weeks, the word he’s been afraid to say for nearly half a year. _Love_. He never thought he’d find love. More recently he didn't think he deserved it. Love wasn’t anywhere near his mind when he’d been in Ferelden. In Kirkwall he’d been too angry for it. He’s still angry, in different ways, but the rage has been soothed, by time and experience. And by Neela. But more and more he’s been thinking, it feels like the end of this hunt, and for the first time in a long time, he has been considering what he will do when the threat is ended.

He always thought he would stay with the Inquisition, for a time. But Cullen’s entire adult life has been with the Templars and then immediately after, the Inquisition. Jumping from one cause to another cannot be all there is.

Cullen had abstractly thought one day he might marry, have some children, but he has always been so focused on his crusades that it just seemed like a faraway thing.

Until Neela.

Everything is uncertain. Either of them could die to end Corypheus’ reign of terror. (And Neela dying has become a frequent event in his nightmares, Maker protect her.) But should they both live... 

“This war won’t last forever,” Cullen says, walking back to his desk. “When it started, I was so focused on surviving, on succeeding. But now... It’s different, now.”

She follows him. “What do you mean?”

“I find myself wondering what will happen after.”

Neela nods. “After we defeat Corypheus, you mean. End the war.”

As they talk he begins removing his armor and padding, dressing down to his soft tunic. The armor is strong and imposing, everything a commander’s armor should be, but it’s heavy. Appropriate. He takes it off at the end of the day.

Stripped out of his armor, he is a man like any other. Vulnerable. And the time has come to tell Neela how he feels. He can hold it back no longer, and he doesn’t want to. If one of them dies... She has to know she is loved.

“Yes. But more and more I have been thinking... after this, many people will move on from the Inquisition, as they should. But I don’t want to move on. Not from you. Not ever.” He cradles her cheek in his hand, her skin soft and warm against his gloveless fingers. She smiles at him, quiet. All at once Cullen feels the weight of one of his greatest fears— _What if she doesn’t love me back?_

He’s told her he wants to be with her forever, but what if Neela is only with him until end of the war? What if she wants to leave the Inquisition, go far away?

“Um, what I mean is...” he stutters. “I don’t know what you—that is, ah... Neela, I—“

“Relax, Cullen,” she says warmly, sweet, calming the pounding of his heart. “It’s all right.” She puts a hand over his and she’s so fucking beautiful.

He confesses, “I love you, Neela.”

Her eyes widen and she takes a step back, releasing his hand and moving out of his space, and he panics. _Please don’t leave me, please don’t leave me now, I need you, I’ll do anything, Maker, please, don’t leave me._

“I mean—if you don’t, please, I know I'm--I’m sorry, shit, I’ve ruined everything, I am so sorry Neela, please don’t—please don’t go, I—“

He hears her soft hiccup of a sob and he looks up from wringing his hands to see tears pouring down her face, but she’s _smiling._ Neela moves back in closer and slips her arms around his waist in a hug. Cullen envelopes her in his embrace, not understanding why she’s crying, but accepting what she has to give him, thanking Andraste that Neela hasn’t run off.

“I’m sorry,” she mumbles against his chest.

“It’s okay if you don’t feel the same way—“ Cullen starts to say.

“No!” she exclaims, pulling back a bit. “I do love you, Cullen, I love you so much and I’m so... I’m so _afraid_ and it’s so stupid and... It’s just that back in the Circle, like I told you... mages can’t... falling in love, having feelings for someone beyond sleeping with them... it was a mistake. You... I know you know. It’s silly to pretend you don’t know.” Cullen winces. He knows. “But in the Circle, if you cared for someone, the Templars would find out, and they would make you hurt. It was terrifying and miserable. I was paranoid all the time. Templars could look through all of my things whenever they wanted. Sometimes I would return to my quarters from a lesson to find my things destroyed and torn and tossed about. If they felt like it, they could watch you bathe or relieve yourself or sleep—Templars had taken all my privacy, my agency, all my rights to feel however I feel. And they made me afraid to be close to anyone. So, now, I love you. And that’s terrifying. But I love you. And Maker, isn’t that something!”

“Neela, I...” Cullen trails off. He has no words for the guilt and indignation he feels. He had made other people feel this way. On purpose. For _years_. And he’d done it in the name of justice and the Maker Himself. “I am so, so sorry...”

“I forgive you,” she says, snuggling back into his arms. “I’m free now. You are too. None of them can hurt me anymore. I am with you solely because I want to be. None of them can force me away from being with you. I love you, Cullen, and I want very much to be with you after this is all over, if you’ll have me.”

Cullen nearly chokes as he says, “ _If I’ll ha_ —of course I will. That’s all I want. To stay here. To serve the Inquisition. To serve you. I am yours, Inquisitor Neela. However you want me. I am at your mercy.”

She grins at him, mischievous. “Is that so?”

Neela slips from his arms, moving back to lean against the desk, and accidentally knocks an empty glass bottle to the floor where it shatters. She turns back to him with an _oops_ look on her face, but he just smirks and sweeps his hands over the desk, tossing all the papers and ink and everything to the floor with a crash. Neela laughs as he hovers over her and she scoots back to lay on the desk as he climbs over her, kissing her thoroughly and deliberately, fingers in her soft red hair.

Everything moves so fast after that, chest pressed against hers, Cullen’s head swimming with the closeness, her warmth and her scent, she isn’t stopping and neither is he and Andraste guide him what if it’s too soon, what if she regrets it, what if—

“We should,” she gasps, tilting her head away as he moves his mouth to her neck. “We should...”

He stops immediately. “You want—“

“I _want_ ,” she says, “to climb up _that ladder_ ,” she points at the ladder that goes up to Cullen’s bedroom, “and spend the night with you. If you’re amenable.”

He scoffs. “If I’m _amenable_ , she says.” 

With a giggle, she slips out from under him and darts up the ladder, looking down at him climbing up behind her. 

She laughs all the way to his bed and casts a quick pregnancy prevention spell before she starts to unbutton her tunic but he rushes to her side and puts his hands over hers.

“Wait, I. Can I. Please.” The reality of the moment has sunk in and it’s almost religious for Cullen. He is awed and humbled by the woman sitting on his bed. A being of forgiveness, the true Herald of Andraste. His hands shake slightly and she lets hers lower to her lap. She feels embarrassed, watched, but for him, anything.

Slowly he undoes each button at a time, fingers brushing against warm soft skin. Every few buttons he stops to press a kiss against newly revealed skin, and he moves so gently it almost breaks Neela’s heart. For ten years his life has been violence and fighting and war. Fighting inner demons and real ones, innocent mages and blood mages and bad Templars and himself, but his hands are still so gentle, reverent. It makes her want to hold him close and never let go.

Cullen slips the grey shirt over her shoulders and down her arms and off, dropping it to the floor. They look at each other and he looks like he might cry.

She stands up and slips her hands under his soft shirt, slides it up and over his head and looks at his body approvingly. Cullen feels embarrassed; he’s never been especially vain but he knows he isn’t ugly. He draws her in to kiss her, and she sighs into his mouth, hands sliding from the hard muscles of his stomach up to his shoulders and she pulls him down to the bed until they’re lying like they were on the desk before.

“You are... you’re so...” He doesn’t have words for it. His heart feels full to bursting and his pulse is racing and he’s hard in his trousers and there’s so much skin he hasn’t seen before and he feels a fiery sort of possessiveness inside of him. He is not the first person to see her like this, but Maker’s breath, he wants to be the last. 

“Cullen,” she whimpers, and _Andraste guide him_ that _sound_. “Please, I want this, I want you.”

And she sounds absolutely nothing like that parody of Devorah ten years earlier when it said the same thing. This is _real_ , and _she’s_ real, no parody of a person he concocted in his head, and he _loves her so much..._

They lose their pants and smalls quickly, and she giggles when his leg gets stuck in his pants and he laughs too and he had no idea sex could be not only pleasurable, but also _fun_ , intimate in a way he never expected. Maybe it was something he’d missed before, or maybe it was just Neela.

Either way, the curve of her hips and the swell of her breasts is intoxicating and her red hair is like a halo around her head and the way she arches her back when he sinks into her tight heat is amazing. He feels tears in his eyes again, and she laughs breathlessly and cradles his head in her hands. 

“Do you feel that?” she asks, gasping for breath. And he doesn’t even know exactly what “that” is but he knows what she means. It’s not just the sex. It’s everything else. That she loves him even though everything in her life should have told her to run. That he loves her even though he doesn’t deserve it. How they _love each other_. Cullen has never expected to be _loved_. But Neela loves him. He feels that even as her thighs wrap tighter around his hips and he thrusts into her, one hand holding himself up and the other caressing her nipples. 

She’s making the most incredible sounds and he’s so close, they’ve just started and he’s so close, he slides that hand down her flat stomach to thumb at her clit, and she hisses her approval.

“That’s so... Cullen, that’s so _good_ , don’t stop.” 

“I won’t,” he promises, “I’ll never stop. I’ll love you until the day I die.” 

He rubs relentless circles around the tiny bud of nerves and she cries his name when she comes, her fingers spark with lightning, and he realizes he’s made her orgasm so hard she temporarily lost control of her magic, and he is reminded that Neela is a force of nature, and that he is blessed to be given even this much. He finishes inside her with a low moan and then rolls to the side, slipping out of her to draw her into his arms. 

“That was...” Cullen gasps, fingers playing with her short hair. “Maker, Neela, you are amazing.” 

“I love you,” she tells him. “I know I made you wait. But I was... it was stupid. I was afraid once you’d... _had me_... you would leave. Like any Templar.” 

Cullen smiles at her gently. “Neela, even if you had never wanted to lay with me, I would have been content to be by your side just holding your hand forever.” 

She laughs. “You liar.” 

“I’m quite serious,” he tells her. “I love you so very much. I meant what I said. However you want me, I’m yours.” 

“Then I’m yours,” she answers, and the thought of that makes him want to cry again. 

“If you’re mine,” he says, grinning wickedly and sliding down the bed, “than I’m sure you won’t object to me getting you off a second time?” 

“Why, Ser Cullen,” Neela says with a laugh, head tilted back against the pillow, “I wouldn’t object to that at all.” 

_\--_

_She could die._

Andraste guide her, she could die. He prays for days leading up to their assault on the Arbor Wilds, and then he prays when she leaves to fight the corrupted would-be god himself. 

She holds him close, tells him she will be fine, that she’ll come back to him, but he shushes her, asking for her to let him indulge in a fantasy where she does not have to offer her life so that Thedas can survive. Again and again the Inquisition asks her for more than it is owed, and she gives everything she can for it. And it’s not right.

What happened to Hawke wasn’t right either. She was lifted up as more than a human, and she did everything she could, and then she was vilified for it. 

But Cullen was there. Cullen knows the truth. Cullen knows that Hawke is human, and fallible. She survived her battles, but at great cost. Hawke will never be the same bright-hearted girl she had been all those years ago in Kirkwall. 

Cullen has seen what becomes of fallible mortal heroes. And he prays to the Maker that unlike the missing Hero of Ferelden, unlike the battered Champion of Kirkwall, Neela will come out of this battle whole.

_\--_

Neela defeats Corypheus and makes it out alive, and when the scout arrives at Skyhold, breathless with the news, Cullen sinks to his knees and sobs. Leliana puts a calming hand on his shoulder and Josephine offers him a handkerchief, and they do not taunt him for it.

_Thank the Maker. Neela is alive. Neela is coming back to me._

Neela, who makes his heart pound in his chest and chases away his nightmares. Neela, whose magic is warm and bright and not scary at all. Neela, who Cullen _loves._

Later, hours later, when they’ve escaped to her quarters and are naked in her bed, he presses his mouth against the core of her while she whimpers, thighs shaking on either side of his head. 

He tastes her, and she’s so wet for him, so sweet and she has one hand in his hair and the other gripping the sheets, and she’s here and she’s alive and she wants him and now that they’re here they’re going to be together. And that’s a little daunting, a little terrifying, but he’s so excited to get to spend the rest of his life making her happy. 

“Aah, Cullen,” she whines, hips shifting in his tight grip. “Just... just let me, I can’t...” 

“You can,” he assures her and dives back in, sucking at her clit as she shouts. He’s greedy for this, for her, loves putting his mouth on her, he wants everything she has to offer him, he wants every moment she’s willing to give him. He wants to be the only person to make her feel this way ever again, he wants to be the only name she cries out when she climaxes. 

And that she does, calling his name as she shudders against his wicked tongue, his teeth scraping ever so gently against her clit. Cullen works her through it, face soaked with her wetness, and when she’s done she laughs and uses the corner of the sheet to wipe his face off before kissing him. 

“I love you,” she tells him breathlessly, smiling. 

“You’re just saying that,” Cullen grins back, free in a way he never has been before. 

“Never,” she murmurs, one hand on the back of his neck and the other resting in his chest. “I mean it. I mean it every day. You helped me save Thedas. You've earned your forgiveness. You’re a good man, Cullen, and you’re _mine_.” 

He shifts them then, resting his back against the headboard and pulling her into his lap. 

"Ready?” Cullen asks. Neela nods and he slides up into her, and she wraps her legs around his waist, arms around his neck. 

He holds her and rocks into her so gently, and she whimpers, legs tighter around him. She feels so good, she always does, and she’s alive and she’s _here_ and Cullen doesn’t think that will ever get old. 

Cullen goes so slow, kissing her so thoroughly, her breasts pushed up against his hard chest, fingers trembling where they touch on his skin, rolling her hips with every thrust of his. 

“Please,” she gasps, face buried in the crook of Cullen’s neck. “I need more, please." 

And she asks so sweetly, how could he refuse? If Neela wants to come again, far be it from Cullen to stand in her way. He halfway extracts himself from the embrace to get his fingers down to circle around her clit and she moans, breath hot against his neck, and quickly he flops them over so her back is on the bed and she gasps at the sudden movement and he smirks and thrusts harder. 

She looks up at him with those blue eyes, pupils blown dark and wide, and she smiles at him. He leans over to pepper kisses on her face and neck and her back arches up and he’s overcome with how beautiful she is, how _good_ her heart is. 

“When you left to fight him I thought I would never see you again,” Cullen whispers against her temple. “I thought the last I’d ever see of you would be you marching off to battle. But you’re here. You came back to me.” 

“I’ll always... ngh... I’ll always come back to you,” she promises, squirming in his grasp. Cullen thrusts harder, rubs at the sensitive nub between her legs until she screams with pleasure, eyes wide but seeing nothing. She chants his name like a prayer and she looks _astounding_ when she climaxes. He memorizes everything about her in this moment, this intimate, private thing. 

“You look incredible,” he murmurs into her ear. “You should see yourself, Neela... You’re so... you’re brave and you’re beautiful and you’re strong and you’re kind and you’re a hero...” 

She can’t speak, but he strokes her through her orgasm and murmurs the words in his heart to her. 

“...and you’re _mine_.” He says it awed, humbled, because he can’t believe she would choose him out of every person in the world that might love her. Cullen, who is broken and bitter and has devoted large parts of his life to snuffing out all the things about her that have made her triumphant. Cullen, who not long ago would have destroyed her where she stood just for being.

“I’m yours,” she promises him, hips rocking in time with his. “I want you, I want you Cullen, I _love you_.” 

And that does it, that pushes him over and he shudders into her as he comes, and she laughs once, gentle, and strokes her fingers through his hair as he thrusts shallowly into her tight heat. Slowly he comes back to himself and slips out of her, and her legs lower to the bed. 

“One moment,” he promises and retrieves a damp cloth from the wash basin to clean off some of the grime and sweat. When he’s done she draws him into her arms under the warm covers, and he embraces her eagerly. He kisses her face, her neck, he holds her tenderly in his arms and she smiles at him sleepily. 

“I don’t deserve it. I don’t deserve you. But you picked me,” Cullen whispers reverently, “You saved the world and you picked me. I will spend the rest of my life trying to be worthy of you.” 

She cups his cheek with her hand and shakes her head. “Aren’t I the one who gets to decide that?” 

“What? Yes, of _course_ you are, but—“ 

“No buts!” she interrupts. “I am the Inquisitor still. It’s my responsibility to judge, isn’t it? Your penance is done. You have atoned for your mistakes through your work for the Inquisition. You have given the Inquisition everything you have given the Templar Order and more.” Neela hooks a leg over his, pressing her body along his own. “The things you have done to other mages. The things you have said. They’re in the past. Not forgotten. But they are forgiven. I _forgive you_ for what you have done. And I love you for how much you want to make up for it all, I love you for believing in me from the start of this, I love you for trusting me as a person in general and as a mage specifically, I love you. Understood?” 

Cullen, overwhelmed with her words, simply nods and pulls her as tightly against himself as he can, tucking her head under his chin and dragging his fingers through her silky hair. 

“I do love you very much,” Neela adds, almost shy after her altruistic speech. “I feel safe with you.” 

He almost cries at that. The beautiful mage woman in his arms that he loves feels safe with him and loves him back. 

“Neela,” he finally manages to speak. “You... you make me feel things I never thought I would. Not ever. After the Blight, after Kinloch Hold, I thought... I thought the anger would be all I knew for the rest of my life. And for ten years, anger was enough. But the Champion of Kirkwall proved to me that I was wrong about mages. And you’ve proven I was wrong about myself.” 

“Sweetheart,” Neela murmurs, hand gentle on his cheek. “You’re only human.” 

\--

He finally gets up the guts to propose to her. 

The two of them have left the Inquisition in Josephine, Leliana, and Cassandra’s capable hands for the time being to take a trip to visit Cullen’s family. They all warm up to Neela right away, particularly Cullen’s mother, who finds Neela’s magic quite useful in cooking dinner. Even Cullen’s siblings come to meet her, and despite a little wariness of her magic, they all seem to get along, which makes Cullen feel as though his chest is about to burst with happiness. 

As the sun’s about to set, he brings her back to that lake they’d visited what feels like a lifetime ago, his former hidden reprieve from his sisters and brother. 

“Your family is lovely,” Neela says, fidgeting with the buttons on her coat. “I grew up in the Ostwick Circle, so I barely remember mine. They never wrote me, so. I suppose the Trevelyan noble house didn’t want much to do with their mage child. Mages can’t inherit titles, after all.” 

“I wish I’d written them more when I was a Templar,” Cullen admits, covering her hands with his own and squeezing comfortingly. “But for what it’s worth, a family who couldn’t see your exceptional worth isn’t worth having. You are _incredible_.” 

Neela scoffs and looks away, but lets him hold her hands. “I’m sure it won’t be long before I hear from them now that I’m the Inquisitor, savior of the world. Now that I have... value.” 

Cullen imagines small, 9-year-old Neela being taken by a servant to the Ostwick Circle and left there holding only a plush rabbit and a letter from her father to be given to the Knight-Commander there. He imagines her terrified, tiny face, and thinks of all the terrified, tiny mage-child faces he had rolled his eyes at in Kinloch and heartlessly ordered Tranquilized in the Gallows. _Children_ , he thinks, mage children, young ones, scared and abandoned and lonely, only to be treated like caged animals by Templars—no wonder so many adolescent mages attempted escape. Cullen had never understood it before now. 

“You were born into this world with value,” he says determinedly. “You are more valuable than all the treasure in all of Thedas.”  


She smiles and ducks her head, embarrassed.

“That’s why... Neela. I brought you here to meet my family because...” he swallows hard. He’s practiced this speech nearly every moment he’s had alone for a month; Leliana had even had him present it to her for critique. Cullen has never been especially gifted with words but Neela deserves that romantic language now; her life has been difficult but she’s found it in herself to make it easier for everyone else, for Cullen especially. 

“I brought you here to meet my family,” Cullen begins again, “because I have to ask you something important. You are... the most amazing person I have ever known. You have saved the world. And also me. Without you I fail to see how I could have found my way through quitting my use of lyrium. I have never felt this way before about anyone, and I just don’t see how I ever could again. Neela. You are... the light shining through the darkness. I love you more than words could ever say, but I find that I want so much to try to say them, because you deserve every beautiful word I have in me, and I wish to say them to you, every day, for the rest of our lives. My dearest, Neela...” 

Cullen drops to one knee and Neela’s hands fly from his own to cover her mouth. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out his great grandmother’s engagement ring. It’s gold and soft and it has a perfect tiny diamond set in it. While Neela and most of his family exchanged embarrassing stories about Cullen, he had pulled his mother aside to ask for the engagement ring to give to Neela. His mother had reacted enthusiastically and told him she was proud of him. 

“Will you marry me?” 

He looks up at her, hands shaking, but his grip on the precious family heirloom is ironclad. She’s shaking too, he can tell, and tears are welling up in her eyes. 

“Cullen...” she whispers. “Is this... is this real? You really... you want to marry _me_?” 

He laughs once, feeling himself start to cry in response. All those years without a single tear, and then he met Neela. “Beloved, how could I not want to marry you?” 

“I’m... when I... when I was a little girl, I used to dream about getting married someday... but the Templars, they beat that out of you. They take those dreams away. Is this... This is real?” 

“Neela,” Cullen promises, “I swear to you. I will never let anyone take anything from you again. Please marry me. Please be my wife.” 

“I... yes,” she says, so quietly at first, but then picks up momentum and she begins to beam, nearly glowing with joy. “Yes, I will, of course I will marry you, I’ll...” 

She trails off, at a loss for words, extending her left hand for him to slide the ring into place. As he stands he lifts her up and spins her around and the two of them laugh, tears streaming down both their faces as he shouts out to the silent lake, “SHE SAID _YES_!” It echoes back from the light of the setting sun as if in celebration. 

Neela giggles and tightens her hold on him, hugging him, unwilling to let go. 

“I love you,” she murmurs into his ear, “I love you I love you I love you—“ 

Cullen dips her into a kiss, and she laughs into it until she can’t kiss back anymore so he just presses his forehead against hers and laughs with her and puts her back on both feet and they stand by the lake and watch the sun dip down past the horizon and hold each other with the renewed promise that they will be able to laugh together for the rest of their lives. 

\--

One morning he wakes up from a terrible nightmare that goes like this: 

_He requests a transfer after the Blight ends and they send him to the Ostwick Circle. The mages there are just like the mages in Ferelden had been before Uldred. Cullen hates them; he hates the ones that ignore him and he hates the ones who try to smile at him, smile at him like she used to, he hates the ones who have been there longer than he has been alive and he hates the ones who are too young to understand that he is not their ally._

_Within the first three days he sees her. She’s not an elf, but beyond that she looks just like the so-called “Hero”. She’s definitely female, her skin is dark and her hair is red like fire and her eyes are soft blue and she’s the same, these filthy mages are always the same; they act innocent and harmless but they aren’t; they’re monsters all of them, he’s seen what they become when you give them too much leeway._

_She doesn’t smile at him. She doesn’t smile at all. Cullen doesn’t know her name and he doesn’t care but he watches and he waits for her fatal mistake. All he wants, all he needs for his skin to stop crawling is an excuse to put her down like a rabid Mabari._

_He bumps into her outside of one of the libraries and she drops the books she was carrying._

_“I’m so sorry!” she exclaims, immediately dropping to her knees to gather the fallen tomes, head bowed. He can see that she’s afraid of him, she’s terrified; her hands are shaking and she can’t look him in the eye, and he decides he hates her for that too._

_“Show some respect, girl” Cullen snarls, grabbing her jaw roughly in his hand and jerking her face up so her frightened eyes have to meet his. He can feel her trembling._

_“I’m-I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—"_

_“And what were you in such a hurry for?”_

_“I—I was just going to go meet my instructor—“_

_“Are you telling me the truth, girl?” he sneers. “Or maybe you were off to meet whichever one of these filthy louts was willing to stick you today? I know how it goes in the tower, you’re like disgusting little rabbits.”_

_“W-What!? Sir Cullen, that is not—“_

_“Are you talking back to me?”_

_“I—No! I would never!” she pleads. The girl has dropped the books again and she’s practically vibrating with fear, and he likes that. He likes it when the mages are afraid of him. They should be the ones afraid, not him._

_“That’s right,” he coos at her mockingly. “Of course you wouldn’t. You’re just a sweet, innocent little thing aren’t you? Have you even passed your Harrowing yet?”_

_“N-no, sir. It’s next week.”_

_“Oh! Is it now?” he asks cruelly, using his grip on her to throw her back; she stumbles and falls to her knees. “Well, mustn’t be late for your instructor I suppose. Off you go, girl. Wouldn’t want to miss the wrong lesson—I’d just hate to have to behead you at a failed Harrowing.”_

_She whimpers and snatches up the books and scampers off down the hall. He feels better, and decides to make his way to the Templar mess hall for his midday meal._

Cullen wakes up from the dream with a jolt; it’s the middle of the night. In the dim starlight he can see his wife sleeping away, oblivious to his plight. 

It is twelve years since his hatred and anger was so raw, and nowadays his nightmares are merely a few times a month rather than a nightly occurrence, but seeing Neela sleeping soundly beside him always sets his heart at ease. The world is as it should be, for the moment. Somewhere in Thedas, Emet Hawke and her devious pirate paramour are most likely relishing in the state of peace and violently righting wrongs whenever possible. It’s been two years since the missing Hero of Ferelden reappeared with the cure to her and King Alistair’s shortened lifespans. Since Divine Victoria changed the laws surrounding mages, Devorah has been made Queen and has been welcomed back joyfully by her husband, their young son, and their kingdom. And, most importantly, Neela is fast asleep as Cullen looks at her.

Her hair has grown out long and is splayed across her pillow; he brushes a few strands out of her face. She is not a frightened young girl in a Circle somewhere, and he is not an angry young Templar who likes to bully mages.

She is the Inquisitor, a formidable mage and a great leader, the savior of Thedas and a slayer of evil. And she is his wife. And Cullen is the Inquisitor’s army Commander, not a Templar but a talented swordsman, and he is her husband.

In the dark of the night and the privacy of their bedroom, he smiles gently at her and goes back to sleep, reassured in who he is now. 

\-- 

She has red hair and dark skin and she’s a mage. 

Cullen does not know for certain she’s a mage at first, his beautiful daughter Kaia, but he knows it's a possibility. And he loves her more than he ever believed he could love anything or anyone. 

After several hours of labor (and long after she’s broken several bones in Cullen’s hand) Neela gives birth to a healthy baby girl. And the baby looks just like her mother. Cullen doesn’t mind that, although admittedly when she opens her eyes and they’re soft gold like his, he feels his heart leap with pride. 

Kaia grows up happily with the other children that live within Skyhold, and one day when she’s around eleven years old, she accidentally sets a bush on fire with a powerful lightning strike. Cullen actually is with her when it happens, and she knocks herself down with the force of the impromptu spell and then immediately bursts into tears. 

“Hey, sweet girl, it’s all right, why are you crying?” he asks, kneeling down and drawing her into his arms. Cullen wants to say something about the magic but she’s already upset and he’d rather Neela talk to their daughter about it. 

“Papa! I don’t want to go away! The librarian told me that mages have to get locked up in towers all alone,” the little girl sniffles. “And that people in scary armor hurt them. I want to stay here with you and Mama...” 

A pang of guilt he hasn’t felt for years hits him in the gut. In another life, that’s exactly what would have happened to his precious little girl, his child. By law she would have been rounded up and sent away and he would never have seen her again. And someone like his angry younger self would have been locked up with her. 

“No, my dear,” he tells her, drawing back to wipe the tears from her cheeks. “He should have told you that mages don’t live in those towers with the scary people anymore." 

“So I don’t have to go away?” she asks shyly. He brushes her hair back behind her ear. 

“No you don’t,” he tells her. “Not since Divine Victoria said that mages can stay with their families. As long as you learn how to use your magic to only do good things, you can stay with me and Mama.” 

Kaia brightens immediately. “Will Mama teach me to be a good mage like her?” 

Cullen smiles at his daughter. “Kaia, she will teach you to be the _best_. Now go play with your friends and... try not to set any more plants on fire, would you?” 

\-- 

Neela is thrilled that her daughter is a mage; she happily begins to teach her basic magical theory immediately, and writes to Vivienne to ask for some of the beginner spell books they have begun using at the magical college. She also sets Dorian on the task of tracking down a good healer, citing the difficulty they’d had fighting Corypheus without a healer to accompany them as incentive to teach healing magic to Kaia. 

Cullen watches their lessons, watches his brilliant little girl absorb knowledge like a sponge, watches her weave very basic spells under the watchful eye of her mother. 

He knows, watching them, that what happened at Kinloch will never happen here in Skyhold. The mages that grow up and train here will learn magic as a labor of love and understanding, not a curse to be feared. No mage here will ever feel the need to escape, will never feel like they have to turn to blood magic to be free. 

Mages will always be tempted by demons, but what person, mage or no, is not tempted by something wicked? 

Kaia will learn the things that the mages in the Circles will never taught; she will learn about the struggle of those who came before her, she will learn about her mother’s bravery and Leliana’s compassion, she will learn about Emet Hawke, Kirkwall’s Champion, and she will learn about Devorah, the Hero of Ferelden. 

And someday, when she’s old enough to understand, Kaia will learn about her father’s years as a Templar. 

He watches from the doorway of the bottom floor of the library as Neela shows their little girl how to create a ball of fire in her hand. Neela turns to meet his eye and she beams at him, and he grins back. 

Cullen thinks he must be the luckiest man alive. 

\-- 

That night Cullen pens a letter. 

_Your Royal Highnesses King Alistair Theirin and Queen Devorah,_

_My name is Cullen Rutherford; you may know me as the Commander of the Inquisition’s army, and the Inquisitor’s husband. I pray this letter finds you and your family well. You might not remember the first time we ever met, but I do. I was the young Templar trapped at the top of Kinloch Hold the night you both came to ask for the mages’ help. I said some terrible things that day, about mages and about you, Devorah, specifically, and I never apologized. I told you to your face that if I had the Maker’s forgiveness, how you felt about my words did not matter to me._

 _I have thought about that day again and again for the past twenty-three years. Sometimes I can only remember the horrors I saw that day. Other days I dwell on the cruel and childish things I said to a woman who was only trying to help me._

_It’s been a long time since I dwelled on what happened, however, but today is different. Today it turned out that my beloved daughter, just like her mother, is a mage. And thanks to a lot of people, including you both, my daughter will never be taken away from me to go to a Circle somewhere else. I will see my daughter nearly every day of her childhood. She will never go to a Circle to be mistreated by a chauvinistic Templar brat like the one I was._

_I don’t know if either of you ever think about that night, or about my part in it. Maybe you forgot about it; maybe this letter is reminding you both of a day you barely remember from all those years ago. For me, I only remember it now watching my daughter create magic from nothing._

__

_Maker go with you,_

_Inquisition Commander Cullen Rutherford_

\--

Sometime later he receives a reply in a simple envelope, unmarked wax seal, no signature, but he knows who it’s from. It says, in neat, scrawling handwriting: 

_Dear Commander Cullen,_

_It was certainly a surprise to hear from you. It’s funny how things that, at the time they happen, seem monumental, but given time and distance, become tiny moments lost in the patchwork of one’s life._

_I admit, twenty-three years is a long time to wait to say you’re sorry. It is interesting to hear from you now, the leader of the Inquisition’s army when the Inquisition itself is led by a mage. A little nightingale told me you no longer take lyrium, and thus have given up the Templar abilities you once prized._

_I can tell you that I approve of the change in you since I knew you in Ferelden a lifetime ago. And I can tell you the most important thing I’ve learned about magic; perhaps you can pass it on to your daughter. I am positive your wife already knows it._

_There is great magic in the workings of the world. Certainly we know it as the fearsome creatures of the Fade and the talents of mages, but there is even more that we cannot see. It ties people together in strange ways across time and over great distance, it ensures that no matter what goes wrong for us, we are always where we are supposed to be at any given moment. You might call it fate or destiny, but to me, this is magic._

_Perhaps this magic is the hand of the Maker. Perhaps He does not make us strong or bold when we wish it, but instead gives each of us the ability to find that strength within ourselves. I never bought into the idea of “the less He does, the more He’s there” but now I find comfort in the idea that rather than shaping our destinies, the Maker gives us the strength to do it for ourselves._

_I apologize; I am rambling. What I mean to say is that she has changed you, your mage wife, and it is for the better, and there is love. And from your love you have brought a child into the world, and with her, magic. Every one of us in this world has it within ourselves to be better, and I am so happy for you because it sounds like you have found it._

_As for the reason you wrote the letter? I should say the ten years of personal struggle between our last meeting and the Inquisition are punishment enough for the simple cruelty of a young man. That night, you told me that you did not care for my forgiveness as you sought the Maker’s. But here you are, married to a mage, the father of a mage, and you are not afraid anymore. And if you are no longer angry and scared, then you have learned a lesson._

_You are forgiven. And that means you’re free._


End file.
